Rest

When I worked twenty hours a week, I kept honeybees. I walked in the woods, and looked forward to meeting with my clever colleagues. I was depressed, and the human contact was a lifeline, my work a way of having boundaries on activist time, a way to cover a yawning void of feeling.

My full-time job ended less than two weeks ago, and there is a spaciousness. I am still in grad school, and frankly still working: three different contracts to finish out, plus housing to settle for my summer job before I leave on my next trip. But I am allowed again to be lost in a moment, a project, an idea, because my hours are my own.

I make a contest for myself of sleeping long hours: eight, sometimes nine — usually I had only been managing six or seven. I read books and prioritize long walks every day in the rain.

What fool’s bargain is this, that we allow ourselves to be so busy that we trade away those things that make us whole? What a relief it was, for my working time to end: work yet to do, but without the obligation to availability. I am still trying to convince myself to feel no guilt if I don’t check into Slack at least once a day.

And this, even with good work, work I chose, with people I love. Still, the busyness creeps in.

Today is the first day where I am expected absolutely nowhere. Not a meeting, not an outing, not a party. I wake up anyway by eight, and still, there is some trepidation that my body holds: both that there will be not enough to do, and that I will not get enough done. I try to breathe into it, like a tight muscle: calm. But this is the stretch, the change.

I know from other travel that quiet takes time, that I will not regain slow peace today.

Next: Whirlwind